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Anyone actually use Rick-O-Sound?
- Thread starter SanDiegoHarry
- Start date
Yeah, it's a reverse switch to swap channels. The other switches tie both channels for mono, and switch in high impedance (5 megohm) buffer amps.
Of course, if I'm not using a stereo cable I can use the mono input...
I have used it, but only playing around at home, not gigging, and I haven't yet done the whole stereo amps thing, but I do have some effects with stereo inputs and mono outs that I've played with (flanger / chorus / phase stuff).
I tried it a couple of times with my old 79' Jetglo through an Acoustic amp and 1x15 cab for the bass, and a Sun guitar amp into a 210, sounded like two basses playing unison lines, absolutely killer. After lugging the extra setup to a few gigs, I gave up on it, probably the most common story. Me and the guitarist were the only ones who appreciated it. Building a 4001 clone now, haven't decided if I want the ROS function. If I do, I'll probably have Aceonbass make me the harness he describes.
I don't own a Ric (though I ordered a 5 string once and they whimped out on me). But I do have several guitars (not basses) wired that way. it is a great effect. But it takes two amps. And like most, dealing with the added gear gets old fast.
But my bass rig always consists of two combo amps or two amps and cabs. My old rig was a Fender 200 Watt combo with a matching 800 Watt "booster cab. The idea was you could stack them vertically for a kilowatt rig or put them side by side on stage for a stereo setup. My current setup (which does not have the cabs done yet) is two Carvin 500 watt micro amps and two 2 x 10 neo cabs with the same deal. Stack for power or side by side for stereo.
Why Stereo I hear you cry? The answer I discovered some time ago is that certain effects though they take a mono bass or guitar input, sound WAY better when you use a stereo output from them. Reverb is especially that way, though I don't use reverb on bass, but I do often use my bass amps for my guitars. Same is also true on other effects with stereo outputs. The point being that if you already are set up stereo for your effects and pedals adding ROS from the bass is just icing on the cake!
I tend not to use effects much on bass and try not to carry both halves of the amp if I can get away with it, but for the really big shows stereo pedals and ROS (or it's equivalent on other two pickup basses) is the ultimate in my humble opinion. And with light weight amps and cabs the extra gear is not that big a deal.
The advent of very lightweight, powerful amps makes the whole two-rig setup more viable. I briefly owned an SVT, and it sounded great, by god was it heavy! Two micro-amps and a couple of smaller multi speaker cabs set up for stereo sounds about ideal.
Well, normally with a 7 year old thread I wouldn't bother resurrecting, but since it's already been recently brought back from the dead...
This is correct, you can wire any two pickup bass this way, as long as it also features two vol and two tone controls (by my understanding, otherwise the single tone control on a jazz defeats the possibility). I've posted it a number of times, but in case you haven't seen it, I actually performed a similar rewiring on my Jazz Bass.
My wiring isn't quite as elegant as a Ric-O-Sound setup, but essentially the bass now has two separate circuits. The neck pup goes to one stacked pot of vol/tone, and then to its output. The bridge pickup does the same. In my case, this came both from seeing other basses with stereo wiring (Berry Oakley used it, Chris Squire, Geddy Lee, etc) as well as what I saw as out of necessity. The Dagstar pickup has way more output than the jazz, and sending them both through a single mono output, mixed together, wasn't going to cut it. I needed the option of EQing and boosting the volume of the jazz pickup to get it on the same level as the Dagstar (which sounds best wide open, so rolling it off wasn't really an option in my mind). Secondly, the whole reason I bought a stack knob jazz in the first place is to have the ability to set each pickup with different tonal settings. However, the RI '62s don't have the cap as in the originals that makes this possible (it also rolled off high end, so I didn't really want to put it into the circuit anyways), so the tone controls interact, sort of negating the whole point of the stack knobs.
Now on to the practical application. First to recording: this is where it really shines, IMO, since you can simultaneously record two bass tracks. You can them separate them in the stereo field and add different EQ and effects and don't have to retrack the line (although, I guess nowadays you could just duplicate the line digitally, copy/paste what not). For playing live, I also find it very useful. If I'm using a one amp rig, I'll run one pup into the bright channel and the other into the normal channel on my Sunn 2000s. Most often this has been neck into bright, and bridge into normal, as this helps normalize the output discrepancies somewhat, though I've been switching up recently, which also sounds really good. However, if I can get away with it, I really like the dual-rig set up. In this instance, I'll send the neck pickup into a Sunn 2000s, and the bridge into a Sunn 1200s. I can then put different effects on different pickups (fuzz into one, phaser into another, keep one dry, etc), and often I'll put reverb or trem on the bridge pickup to add some subtle depth to the sound. Does the audience notice? Idk, but they definitely notice the 2 amps and 2 2x15s
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This is correct, you can wire any two pickup bass this way, as long as it also features two vol and two tone controls (by my understanding, otherwise the single tone control on a jazz defeats the possibility). I've posted it a number of times, but in case you haven't seen it, I actually performed a similar rewiring on my Jazz Bass.
My wiring isn't quite as elegant as a Ric-O-Sound setup, but essentially the bass now has two separate circuits. The neck pup goes to one stacked pot of vol/tone, and then to its output. The bridge pickup does the same. In my case, this came both from seeing other basses with stereo wiring (Berry Oakley used it, Chris Squire, Geddy Lee, etc) as well as what I saw as out of necessity. The Dagstar pickup has way more output than the jazz, and sending them both through a single mono output, mixed together, wasn't going to cut it. I needed the option of EQing and boosting the volume of the jazz pickup to get it on the same level as the Dagstar (which sounds best wide open, so rolling it off wasn't really an option in my mind). Secondly, the whole reason I bought a stack knob jazz in the first place is to have the ability to set each pickup with different tonal settings. However, the RI '62s don't have the cap as in the originals that makes this possible (it also rolled off high end, so I didn't really want to put it into the circuit anyways), so the tone controls interact, sort of negating the whole point of the stack knobs.
Now on to the practical application. First to recording: this is where it really shines, IMO, since you can simultaneously record two bass tracks. You can them separate them in the stereo field and add different EQ and effects and don't have to retrack the line (although, I guess nowadays you could just duplicate the line digitally, copy/paste what not). For playing live, I also find it very useful. If I'm using a one amp rig, I'll run one pup into the bright channel and the other into the normal channel on my Sunn 2000s. Most often this has been neck into bright, and bridge into normal, as this helps normalize the output discrepancies somewhat, though I've been switching up recently, which also sounds really good. However, if I can get away with it, I really like the dual-rig set up. In this instance, I'll send the neck pickup into a Sunn 2000s, and the bridge into a Sunn 1200s. I can then put different effects on different pickups (fuzz into one, phaser into another, keep one dry, etc), and often I'll put reverb or trem on the bridge pickup to add some subtle depth to the sound. Does the audience notice? Idk, but they definitely notice the 2 amps and 2 2x15s
.I never thought of it that way in having two combo amps... Way less complicated than 2 cabs and 2 heads for if I were to get the same cab sizes anyways! When I get a Ric in a couple years I'll definitely think about that
I'm not Jonesy, but I have to agree - I find the feel of Rick's to be awful. They sound dandy - and look very cool, but the necks just don't work for me (and as a HUGE Chris Squire fan as a kid, that really pissed me off).
Same here. I was a huge Cliff Burton/Geddy Lee fan. Trying a Ric is easily the most disapointing bass experience I've ever had. So many hard edges, so heavy, so clunky. And the sound did not work for me. It sure worked for Geddy/Cliff, but for me, that was not where I was going with bass at the time. Damn, because I had a huge hero worship thing going on, and I think they're gorgeous basses, and I really really wanted to like it, but it was not meant to be.
My current bass is a fairly nondescript, ugly jazz bass. But even the first time I held it, everything clicked and it has been my main bass for 15 years or so.
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Personally, I love the feeling of Rickenbackers. The neck feels great to me and I'm used to playing a jazz bass. I guess I'm one of the lucky ones who actually likes the playability
Not all Rics are the same, didn't like a lot of the new ones, my 77 just felt right...and the sound? Fantastic, wife would divorce me if I sold it.
Bought mine used in 90/91 and it Ric -o -sound never worked properly, so I have never used it.
Hmm, I had not tried it, I hadn't even thought about trying it. then I saw this thread pop up and thought to myself, "Self, you have the gear now to try this out."
I just came back from my music room to report in.
I hooked up my 4003W to my SVT Classic/SVT 212 AV and to my Bassman TV 12. Hokey smoke Bullwinkle, it's pretty interesting. It took a little work to get the balance just right between these two amps, but it is the fullest and warmest sounding Rickenbacker I've ever heard.
I tried it first with the bridge pickup into the SVT and the neck pickup into the Bassman TV, then I tried it the opposite way and it changed the sound completely. (It was thinner.) So, I switched it back.
Yes, it's a bit cumbersome, but I could see it being useful particularly for recording.
I just came back from my music room to report in.
I hooked up my 4003W to my SVT Classic/SVT 212 AV and to my Bassman TV 12. Hokey smoke Bullwinkle, it's pretty interesting. It took a little work to get the balance just right between these two amps, but it is the fullest and warmest sounding Rickenbacker I've ever heard.
I tried it first with the bridge pickup into the SVT and the neck pickup into the Bassman TV, then I tried it the opposite way and it changed the sound completely. (It was thinner.) So, I switched it back.
Yes, it's a bit cumbersome, but I could see it being useful particularly for recording.
Now, having said what I just did, I would love to play around with it, if it did work. If I were in a band (or saw myself in a band in the future) where we did some more experimental stuff, I could see having a blast with it.
I'd run the neck PUP into a proper bass amp, say my 76 SVT, channel 1. Then I would run the bridge pup into a switching unit, the switch would direct that signal to either:
A) channel two of my SVT when I want more standard bass sound, and/or when using the bridge pup with the cap OUT of the circuit
OR
B) when the cap is IN the circuit (high pass filter) to guitar amp when I want some overdrive, maybe effects, etc.
But......
I don't do any of that poopie, and I'm in a old white guy blues band, so whatever.
I'd run the neck PUP into a proper bass amp, say my 76 SVT, channel 1. Then I would run the bridge pup into a switching unit, the switch would direct that signal to either:
A) channel two of my SVT when I want more standard bass sound, and/or when using the bridge pup with the cap OUT of the circuit
OR
B) when the cap is IN the circuit (high pass filter) to guitar amp when I want some overdrive, maybe effects, etc.
But......
I don't do any of that poopie, and I'm in a old white guy blues band, so whatever.
Did Geddy run his in Stereo? I know Squire modified his old V63 to run stereo, and you can really hear it in the old Yes recordings. There is the warm Macca bass in the background with the treble clank up front, sounds like two separate basses or double-tracking. I have literally never seen another bassist (besides me) try it live, and I only did it twice that I can remember.
I have heard it said that Squire did in fact double his baselines on guitar, on Fragile I think.
I dont know if this is true or not, it is the internet, after all.
